New x5 owner, oil leak (alternator bracket)
 

Hello everyone,
I recently acquired a 2005 x5 4.4i. The car has major oil leak. From what I can tell, it's coming from the alternator bracket gasket/seal. I heard this is common. The few questions I have are:

1) how hard is it to fix the oil leak if I do it at home. I found some DIY already. But I heard some people saying that they had trouble doing the work at home and it was very hard. I know the front differential have to be removed. Is that hard to remove? I have tools at home and I'm somewhat familiar with cars in general. I have changed the timing belt and also done suspension work on my honda. I know this is completely different and it's my first BMW so I want to see if I'm better off avoiding the headache at home and letting the mechanic do it.

2) since I'm already down there, should I do other repairs/maintenance that may arise in the future? One of the BMW mechanic recommended changing some gaskets, valve cover gasket, oil pressure switch, timing cover. Is the anything you guys can think of that I should do? The car has 90k miles. I heard some people changing ccv valve?

3) I know the 4.4 engine came with timing chain. Does it require replacing it at 100k miles? What about the water pump?

Thanks in advance!
Terry

You don't have to remove the diff. I just had this done Thursday. Should take a seasoned mechanic 4-5h max. The shop I had it at, supported the engine, dropped the subframe enough to access, had engine mount disconnected, plus removed applicable hoses, alternator, belt, etc. I had them do the alternator idler pulley while they were there. It would be a royal pita to try this on a garage floor, but it would be doable.

Here is a shot of the leak before they started on it:
http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/u...0110-01026.jpg

Here is a shot of the dropped access:
http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/u...0115-01032.jpg

Here is a clear shot of the cleaned off area:
http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/u...0115-01033.jpg

This one one job I sourced. I usually am a DIY kind of guy but I didn't want to mess with this. Sounded too hairy. I paid $725 out the door.


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$450 which included some code scanning/clearing and the intermediate lever tweaking.

Thanks for the response guys. LVP, thanks for the picture. I got a quote for $700 so sounds like it's reasonable. One important factor I forgot to include is how this all happened. After doing some research, i think it's an important information. Driving the car in 20F for about 10 minutes. I noticed the low oil light came on. I quickly pulled over to find a puddle underneath the car. It was oil. I did not start the car after that and had it towed home. Upon further inspection, i noticed the oil is leaking from the alternator bracket. After doing some research on this forum, it seems like my CCV froze and caused pressure to build up which caused the alternator gasket to give out? That's what I'm thinking. I live in Chicago, where it's real cold. My problem seems similar to http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...e-stalled.html I'm not sure if CCV caused it but I'm thinking I should either replace the CCV with original or cold CCV package or delete like bavarianE39 http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...-problems.html i'm leaning toward replacing it with PCV valve so it's more reliable so I don't have to deal with more blown gasket again. What do you guys recommend? Thanks again

I upgraded my parts to the "cold weather" update BMW released after these problems started. It required a new valve cover for the passenger side and relocating the CCV external with some insulated tubes. Here is the SIB that describes it. While I did this upgrade, I did the valve cover seals, every o-ring up top that could go, plus the valley pan and coolant pipe. Upon removal, it was evident mine were close to going anyways.

Brace yourself if you go this route - the parts aren't cheap. But neither is a cooked engine :)